Crystal

At four in the morning I met a patient with stab wounds to his left arm and axilla (armpit). They were mostly superficial but the one on the posterior aspect of his axilla was well into the fat and needed deep sutures. Also, one of the superficial lacerations on his arm went right through a tattoo which read, “Crystal”.

It turns out that this young man, a construction worker, had a girlfriend named Crystal. Crystal had a sister named Melanie, and this gentleman had set the sister up with one of his buddies from work. The only problem with this was that Melanie had an admirer who lived next door to my patient. This admirer had lost a leg some years ago in a motorcycle accident and spent his time, according to my patient, drinking and smoking and hobbling around on a single crutch.

When the somewhat drunk foursome came home the admirer was waiting. My patient was not expecting to be beaten with a broken crutch by a hobbling drunk. But he was. To his credit, he did not fight back, and had a few lacerations as a result. I did manage to reconnect the letters in the tattoo to spell 'Crystal' once again. Ah, love.